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First book is for Baby-Boomers caring for their parents

Big River Press presents R. J. Brown's newly expanded second edition of her much-loved memoir STANDING THE WATCH: The Greatest Gift.

      Standing The Watch at a home death is no walk in the park: it can be frightening, time-consuming, worrying, and often unpleasant yet it's also fertile ground for courage, discipline, spirituality, compassion, humor and love.

      Weaving excerpts from the medical log she had to keep for the home health nurses, with memories, e-mails, essays and useful lists, R. J. Brown shares what it took to Stand The Watch for her beloved Poppa's final days.

      So who has the time to waste waiting for someone to die? There's nothing money can buy that gives more comfort, for in Standing The Watch, you are in the pulse of life.

      If you've chosen to care for your parents in their final days, R. J. Brown's memoir offers answers to your questions, lists of useful things to know, and insights into your worries.

      "STANDING THE WATCH: The Greatest Gift is the personal memoir of a woman who took care of her dying father-in-law. A profound testimony and tribute filled with grief, love, and courage, narrating a terrible trial. R. J. Brown wrote this candid, sensitive, at times inspiring autobiographical treatise in order to help others prepare for the inevitable day when they too must say goodbye to a loved one. STANDING THE WATCH is very highly recommended reading for anyone charged with the responsibility of caring for a terminally ill parent, whether at home or in a residential care facility." Midwest Book Review

      "Whether you intend to care for a loved-one as they die and are looking for comfort, wisdom and help, or you doubt you'll ever be at the bedside of a dying person, there's much to gain from STANDING THE WATCH: The Greatest Gift." Lynn Lott, M.A., M.F.T., DO-IT-YOURSELF THERAPY.

      "STANDING THE WATCH: The Greatest Gift is a page turner, beautifully written and heart warming. One might wonder how a book about death and dying could be heart warming, but it is. R. J. Brown writes clearly, simply, and movingly, and never fails to hold the reader's interest. I cannot imagine that there is anyone who would not deepen and evolve on reading STANDING THE WATCH: The Greatest Gift." Dr. Alma H. Bond, Psychotherapist, and author of 12 books.

      "STANDING THE WATCH: The Greatest Gift is very timely with so many families taking on the challenge of a Home Death, and the author's articulate and folksy writing style makes for a very readable and fascinating tale." Ruth Raven, Hospice Nurse

Next is The Dead Husband

Cleaning up dead husbands is not in SALLY COLLIER's job description, so when she finds one half-buried at the bottom of his garden, her Monday morning work schedule gets majorly derailed.

Sally has history with MEL BIRNAUM, the owner of the multi-million dollar home overlooking Discovery Bay on the Olympic Peninsula, so when her beau, Jefferson County Chief of Detective GEORGE TULLOCK, warns her she'll have to remember what she saw on her arrival, her day turns into a walk down memory lane.

From being raised in post-World War II London, England to being trained as a secretary & emigrating to Chicago, Illinois where she went from an eager-beaver office gal to live-in lover & single mom of two chickadees; from heading west to the Bay Area where she met Mel and his wife, to office manager in a doctor's practice in picturesque Port Townsend in Washington state, she's made a good life for herself, started a cleaning company & found a good man to love.

In this chapter of her life, Sally's a charwoman, proud that Charles Dickens wrote about her trade in A Christmas Carol, and says of her mentor: "My Mum was a good char, it's just that she didn't clean with light heart. You know, have fun. Oh, quit sniggering! Of course you can have fun cleaning house. What's the first thing most little girls play at? Anyway, she taught me that a family's home will tell you a lot about how they're getting along." For the past three years, the Birnbaums have been in trouble.

Sally tells this first mystery from her perspective as an immigrant and business woman and isn't shy about her memories, the joy she finds in her long-time relationship with one who Serves & Protects or the houses she cleans.

AUTHOR'S BIO

R. J. Brown, an adopted WWII orphan, came up in England. She attended Eothen boarding school & Queensgate School for Girls in London. For 4 years she was Lead Alto in the London Schoolgirls Choir.
      While attending St. Martin’s School of Arts & Crafts, she joined the Anti-Apartheid Movement where she met Nelson Mandella, & marched on the South African Embassy to protest his incarceration.
      RJ graduated from Marlborough Gate Secretarial College, left home & “temped” until hired as Export Secretary at Sir Robert J. Burnett’s 200 year-old distillery. When it was dismantled in a hostile takeover, RJ decided to emigrate. A week before her 22nd birthday she set sail for America on the Castel Felice.
      Reaching Chicago, Illinois she was accepted as secretary to the Director of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations Midwest. Rabbi Robert J. Marx, a leader in the Civil Rights Movement often hosted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Later, as Administrator for the UAHC’s Olin-Sang Union Institute in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin she met the concentration camp survivor & author, Elie Wiesel.
      At that time suburban teenagers were running away in droves & when camper parents asked RJ to find them, she discovered the Counter Culture: volunteering at Alice’s Revisited, The Seed newspaper, Grace Lutheran Runaway Recovery Program, & George’s LSD Rescue Squad.
      In 1979, fed up with commune life, she went west with her children to the Bay Area where she cleaned houses, discovered food co-ops, alternative schools & the Human Potential Movement.
      By 1985 she had moved to Port Townsend, Washington where she trained as a Children’s Advocate for the Jefferson County Domestic Violence Program, ran weekly groups for children of abused mothers, & created the Stepson Walk'n'Talk Safety Course.
      For 9 years, she was the Managing Editor of Jonathan Collin, MD’s Townsend Letter for Doctors.
      With her children grown and flown, she married author D. H. Brown who was taking care of his aging father. In Sequim, they started their own magazine Wolf's Digest of Alternative Medicine written in plain language for patients.
      After Poppa Brown had a mild stroke, they moved west to the far reaches of the Olympic Peninsula rainforest where they built their cabins & took care of him in the last years of his life.
      In 1998, they created RebeccasReads.com, an award-winning book review website. After 6 years the labor so exacerbated her Vietnam Veteran husband’s war-related illnesses, they retired the site. It was acquired in 2008 by Irene Watson, who revived it in a different format.
      R.J. Brown, now a grandmother X 2, writes for the Seniors Sunset Times & manages Big River Press which published her husband's novel HONOR DUE. She is at work on her first cozy mystery, THE DEAD HUSBAND as well as RAIN FOREST LIVING: Sketches from a Northwest Home.

Check out her website at: www.rjbrownbooks.com.